Holmes Group Urges Overhaul Of Ed. Schools

Education schools in the nation's leading research universities must
embark on a thorough overhaul of their programs or "surrender their
franchise," a report released last week by the Holmes Group says.

"The education school should cease to act as a silent agent in the
preservation of the status quo," warns the report, "Tomorrow's Schools
of Education." The 116-page document from the group--whose members
include deans of more than 80 education schools in research
institutions--lays some of the blame for the troubled state of American
schools on higher education.

But it also argues that, by refocusing their missions, education
schools in leading universities can help solve the problems afflicting
public schools.

Officials of the group said late last week that they expect to form
new partnerships with other education groups intended to help carry out
the reforms laid out in the report.

Its message targets about 250 education schools in major
universities. While those schools represent only one-fifth of all the
institutions that prepare educators, the report notes, they exert great
influence by developing the knowledge base in education, training
education school faculty members, and influencing policy.

Too often, the report adds, faculty members ignore public schools to
concentrate on theoretical research or to work with graduate students
who do not intend careers as classroom teachers.

"Those who prepare teachers and other educators continue to dwell in
a bygone era, using outmoded conceptions of professional work to guide
their preparation programs," the report asserts.

Applied Knowledge

Tomorrow's schools of education, it says, must place children first
and establish ties with educators in elementary and secondary schools.
Because education schools have strayed from this focus, the report
contends, faculty members have lost sight of their responsibilities as
part of a professional school.

"Traditional forms of academic scholarship have a place in
professional schools," the report says, "but such institutions are
obliged, as well, to learn from practice, and to concern themselves
with questions of applying knowledge."

The renewed focus on public schools should then guide education
schools as they develop new knowledge, offer professional development
for teachers, and weigh in on educational policy, the report says.

While education schools traditionally have not been "at the
policymaking table," the report notes, "efforts to improve education
are too important to cede to representatives of government and
business."

It asserts that education schools, generally held in low public
esteem, need to make a case for the distinctive contributions they can
make to the field. Their raison d'ˆtre, it states, should be to
produce special knowledge about children and their learning, about
education systems, about culture and young people's learning, and about
what should be taught in schools.

Core Knowledge

The report also argues that education schools should provide a
"common core" of knowledge to both entry-level and advanced students,
strongly connected to precollegiate teaching and learning.

"Almost everyone who goes to work in public education should be
prepared to teach and--with few exceptions--should launch their careers
as teachers working directly with children," it says. The exceptions
would include school nurses or central-office accountants, for
example.

The focus on core knowledge, which would increase and deepen as
educators continued their studies beyond initial preparation, would end
the casual approach to graduate studies now taken by working
professional educators, the report says.

Core knowledge, it says, includes studies of human development and
young people's learning; subject matter and pedagogy; instructional
management; inquiry, reflection, and research and development; and
collaboration in support of young people's learning.

Professional-development schools are integral to the new vision for
education schools, the report says. The Holmes Group championed the
idea of such schools, often likened to teaching hospitals, in its first
report in 1986.

Its second report elaborated on the concept, and since that time
dozens of such schools have sprung up. But the latest report notes that
the idea has attracted "cheap copies" that "threaten to devalue the
real currency."

Call for Standards

Each education school should create at least one
professional-development school, the report says, to be evaluated with
a set of standards developed by the school and the university. The
standards should draw on the findings of other organizations, such as
the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education, that
are working on similar guidelines. (See related story
.)

(See education schools should increase the number of
professional-development schools so that most of their students can
benefit from working in them, the report says.

These changes will not be easy, the Holmes Group acknowledges. To
make them happen, the reward structure for university faculty members
must change. Education schools must also diversify their faculties and
hire more professors who want to research educational practice by
working in schools, the report says.

The Holmes Group plans to send copies of the report to
higher-education officials to enlist their support for its agenda. And
because it cannot achieve its goals alone, the report calls for an
alliance of the group with partners such as the American Association of
Colleges for Teacher Education, the National Board for Professional
Teaching Standards, and the national teachers' unions.

These allies, the report says, will be asked to help the Holmes
Group develop standards for the new breed of education schools. Schools
that cannot meet the standards after a reasonable time should be closed
down, it concludes.

Information on ordering the report is available from the Holmes
Group, 501 ERICkson Hall, Michigan State University, East Lansing,
Mich. 48824-1034; (517) 353-3874.

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